Philip Morris suspends social campaign after Reuters exposes young 'influencers'

IMO, a major vulnerability of social media is ability to coopt the influencer model into an advertising scheme laundered of accountability, and this keeps happening.<p>We recently saw Jake Paul and others covertly pushing loot boxes (glorified digital gambling) to kids on YouTube.<p>There needs to be legislation with serious teeth that brings the standards of online advertising and influence-pushing in line with more established forms of media.<p>You know when you&#x27;re watching paid advertising on TV, but on YouTube you&#x27;re banking that whoever you&#x27;re watching is being honest. And based on stories like the loot box snafu, those guys were getting six-figure checks to create those videos.<p>Such errors of judgment deserve serious consequences, plain and simple.

This is the same company that puts cigarette ads on billboards next to schools in third world countries. I would take any suggestion that they want to &quot;reduce youth smoking&quot; with a big heaping spoon of salt.

IQOS is crap, it failed from the start and this is just a face-saving act.<p>If anyone is interested, it could never have had enough battery for a decent puff.<p>A half-hearted attempt at beating ecigs. It could not have succeded.

Go on youtube and search for juul videos and look at how many of these videos are essentially paid advertising targeted at children.

“conviction to achieve a smoke-free world through socially responsible practices.”...? Why do they even do press? I&#x27;m honestly confused by the drug dealer saying they are trying to help the problem

For those of you who didn&#x27;t read, the article states:<p>&quot;The company’s internal “marketing standards” prohibit it from promoting tobacco products with youth-oriented celebrities or “models who are or appear to be under the age of 25.”<p>So the age limit in discussion is self imposed by the company, which is 25. The &#x27;young influencer&#x27; mentioned is 21 years old.<p>I don&#x27;t see this as anything above a journalistic sensationalism.

<i>Any paid influencers promoting the product also must disclose “any relationships between you and entities that create labeling for, advertise, market, and&#x2F;or promote the products, on your behalf, or at your direction.”</i><p>It&#x27;s a pity that social networks don&#x27;t require this as part of their TOS. There are a number of high profile accounts on Twitter, for example, that seem to leverage their follower counts and blue checkmarks to promote propaganda for the highest bidder (and they have multiple admins on supposed verified individual accounts, churning out said propaganda 24x7).<p>There are creative ways to hide the payments, such as using books authored by the influencers, but that&#x27;s another discussion.

I wonder if these influencers are coming from the Russian troll farms that were trying to spread propaganda during US elections. I would be very surprised if they kept the same head count.

Great synergies here with the Philip Morris of tech.

Unbelievable. In 2019 doing that kind of things, it&#x27;s pure evil.

IDK...Is it just me or do I give the individual adult more credit then, it would seem, most others do?<p>Russian troll farms...influencers..BFuckingD. People are responsible for their behavior, and just because some good looking tool on Social does this or votes for that sure doesn&#x27;t mean you&#x27;re absolved from responsibility for choosing to follow or not.<p>Sure...kids need to ABSOLUTELY be protected and the punishments to those who attempt to lead them astray should be as deep as any we have for any criminal.<p>But draconian speech suppression aimed at adult-to-adult communications? No thanks.<p>I just don&#x27;t see how that eventually leads to anywhere I would want to live.